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Rocher Zelcorner
Human male, born LY 880, in Jump Village. Don of InterGang's Jump Village branch; zelfruit orchardist. Rocher (pronounced rō·shā) comes from a long line of orchardists, and his ancestors were among the founders of Jump Village in 372. He is known to have claimed that it was one of his ancestors who first discovered zelfruit, and also that it was that ancestor who first suggested the law that passed the following year, the Zelfruit Proprietary Act. There are, however, no records which clearly identify any one particular settler who discovered the fruit nor who suggested the law. Still, the claim may have merit, considering his clan has certainly owned one of the largest zelfruit orchards on Jump Isle for many generations, quite possibly going back to the founding of the village. Throughout the generations, the clan has steadily increased its share of the zelfruit market, until finally, in 900, Rocher himself purchased one of the last competing orchards on the isle, giving his clan a virtual monopoly (it was this "cornering of the zelfruit market" that led him to choose the surname "Zelcorner" in 904). It should also be noted that Rocher is an amateur geneticist, who has worked to develop new strains of zelfruit which come in colors other than its natural yellow. In 904, following the elections of the first World Council and village councils, Rocher orchestrated a plan which added his own village, as well as Triscot and Woodstockade, to the list of villages in which InterGang had branches. Triscot had been one of the first four villages in LandOrder, and had therefore had an edge in blocking InterGang from starting up there. Woodstockade wasn't even in contact with any other villages until 903, at which point Castor Des'Eller made a point of doing all he could to prevent gangs from starting in his village; however, LandOrder managed to start up operations too covertly to be detected until it was too late, unlike InterGang. And Jump Village's police had made a special effort since 899 to prevent any inter-village gangs from setting up (and they did a better job than Woodstockade, largely because the JVPD were already quite used to dealing with local street gangs). Rocher's plan began as a business alliance between himself, Emannus Des'Rosset of Woodstockade, and Nicole Kriek of Triscot. The three of them were each the head of their respective clans, all of them wealthy. Another trait they all shared was their disgruntled attitude toward authority, largely because they themselves had failed to attain any political power in the elections. (Des'Rosset was particularly irritated, because his village was the only one on the Land to have had a political council prior to the Coming of the Order, having established one in LY 850.) This business alliance they formed entailed trading the products for which each of them were well known (Rocher for zelfruit; Kriek for several crops, most notably a particular type of cherries and the lambic made from it, which is called "kriek"; and Des'Rosset mainly for leopcoat ranching). However, while the business proved quite profitable in a legitimate way, it also served as a pretext for their frequent meeting, both in person and via t-mail. During these meetings, they honed Rocher's plan for each of them to carve out for him or herself a position in the underworld of their respective villages, and gathering allies and employees for their own gangs, while avoiding detection by either LandOrder or the police. When they were ready, late in 904, they made their efforts known to Amelia Mysshroudedtery, and offered her a chance to absorb their gangs into InterGang, expanding her influence into three villages in one swoop, with little effort on her part. (Though she did send some of her people to each village, to help facilitate the transition to InterGang's way of doing things, as well as make it clear to both the police and LandOrder, once the gangs became openly active, that taking them on would not be as simple as dealing with single village gangs, nor even a mere three-village gang.) So the deal was mutually beneficial for everyone concerned. While this move obviously irritated the police, as well as LandOrder (which itself didn't manage to open a branch in Jump Village until 908), Rocher runs his branch of InterGang in a fairly mellow fashion, having no desire to get into any major rivalry with LandOrder. His criminal activities are low-key, doing little if any serious harm to anyone. In fact some people among the JVPD, while they likely wouldn't admit this, are said to almost appreciate Rocher's taking over the local gangs (which he did largely by paying off their leaders), as it put an end to the formerly interminable gang wars that took place in the village (one of the things that had initially made the prospect of organizing a presence in Jump Village unattractive to both LandOrder and InterGang, back in 899). It should also be noted that Zelcorner and the others remain in control of their legitimate businesses, thanks to the idea Zelcorner had of using the Business Management Regulation Act as a legal defense, to prevent their boards of directors from voting them out. Category:People